About

The Arcane Arts is a game of witchcraft and wizardry that pits you and your opponent in a duel to the death. Players take turns attacking and casting spells at each other until only one remains. Each player has their own deck of magic spells, ancient relics, and powerful runes which they use to do battle.

Featuring a unique energy system, players begin the game with full power and can regenerate their magic power each turn. But beware, the runes have an owner but no master! Your opponent may drain your runes to cast their spells at you!

Will you outwit your opponent? Turn their own strengths against them? Hit them in the face so hard that you knock all the blood out of their body? The choice is yours!

Pick up a Spellbook and throw down the gauntlet today!

Your deck of cards represents a collection of Spells which you will use to battle against other Wizards.

Prove your mettle by defeating other wizards on spelltorn battlefields as you trek across the land collecting spells to bolster your own personal Spellbook!

Only the strong survive in this fast-paced strategy game with over a billion possible combinations of cards!

There are 7 different Spellbooks to choose from. Each is built around a single realm of magic, and each realm of magic is different.

A Spellbook contains all the components one player needs to play a match.

Players picks the realm of magic that most resonates with them. Each realm has an associated wizard, and each wizard casts spells and attacks in their own unique way.

The goal of the game is to deal damage to your opponentequal to their health value to defeat them. Players deal damage to each other by casting spells and attacking.

You can also equip powerful relics (like weapons and armor) to help sway the odds in your favor.

With over a billion different possible combinations of cards, you can customize a deck that plays exactly how you want!

Other tools and utilities will become available as the campaign progresses.

Each Spellbook contains 54 total cards and comes in a totally sweet box.

Each Spellbook contains a unique set of 32 cards not contained in any of the other realms.

Purchase different Spellbooks to bolster your collection! You can mix and match spells and runes together from different realms to create custom hybrid decks!

Backers who pledge for the Collectors Edition receive cards with exclusive golden borders!

While all the sets are totally valid for play, but we'd recommend picking up some card sleeves if you plan on throwing down with the special golden cards!

The collectors edition comes with exclusive hex tokens for the runes and comes in a themed box containing all the realm decks.

Show off your library of spells with this magical keepsake!

I wanted to put this on Kickstarter because art is expensive! Before investing too heavily into the final art for the game, I wanted to get some interest in the project.

The main goal of this Kickstarter is to raise funding for the finalized version of the cards from the prototypes displayed here.

This campaign will ship the rewards using this prototype art and the proceeds which do not go to the cost of manufacturing will be reinvested to commission the finalized art for the cards.

Also it's been my experience that the best advances in the development of this game have come from the players, and so it stands to reason that the more players there are, the better the game will get! And that's where you come in; I want you to help make this great game even better by providing your feedback into how it plays and what kinds of mind-bending combos you can pull off with it!

If you love magic, wizards, and/or card games then I think you will really enjoy the Arcane Arts!

SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT!

If the project gets funded, all backers receive the high quality prints of the first edition cards while the final illustrations are being produced.

An example of the final art direction will be released during the campaign to give an idea of where the project is going!

Hi there! My name is Eric Garside. I’m a real live wizard and long time gamer turned game developer. A little over a year ago, I was lying in bed one night and I wondered what it would be like to be a wizard locked in an epic duel with a talented opponent. That night, I had dreams of lobbing fireballs, hurling lightning bolts, and just generally being a magical badass.

That very next morning, I struck out on a path to capture that feeling in a game. I’m a self-taught software developer and had never really done anything this artistic before, and so I thought to myself “How hard could it be?”

It turns out making games is really hard! I had a lot to learn about a lot of things. Thinking up mechanics, conveying them in a clear and consistent way through card text, creating the actual cards images, writing up a rulebook, commissioning the art for the cards… it was a trip!

But here I am, a year wiser and more experienced with a something amazing to show for it!

This game combines all the things I love, and was an exercise in creativity that was fun even when it was challenging. I put together this Kickstarter campaign because I’ve taken this game as far as I can on my own.

It’s time to open this up to the rest of the world, and with your help and a little magic, we can make the Arcane Arts a worldwide phenomenon!

So if you’re into competitive card games and are looking for a new and innovative way to express your tactical mind, please help me in bringing this game to life! I think you'll love it as much as I do.

This game was created with two very important principles in mind:

1) It's not a money making scheme to harvest quarters.

One of the most obnoxious parts of getting into a new card game is how hard it is to get the cards you need to build the deck you want. It's a barrier to entry that keeps novice players from growing to experts, and hurts the competitive scene.

As a result, it's my intention to never release booster packs or any other kind of "random-chance" mechanic to the acquisition of cards. Starting with the base set and applying to any/all expansions, all cards will always be purchasable as a full set.

This is an attempt to provide a reasonably sized complexity footprint that allows for players to focus on deck building and gameplay and not on buying cards hoping for something rare or exotic.

2) It's all about the tournaments.

Some of my fondest memories from childhood occurred at comic book shops, playing cards for hours on end with my friends, or traveling to malls in nearby states to play in tournaments against strangers.

I chalk this up to the fact that I love competition. In fact, I love competition so much that if you think you like competition more than me, I will fight you about it.

The natural outlet for this is to channel it into creating a thriving competitive scene across the country, and eventually the world. I'd love nothing more than to start a Duelist League with weekly tournaments that award ladder points and prizes.

It is my intent to create a website with a national ladder, ranking the best players by their performance in weekly meet-n-fight-nights held at comic book shops and game stores all around America.

The eventual goal is to hold massive open and invitational only tournaments to allow the best wizards battle it out with epic duels on a grand stage. The winners of these tournaments would then join The Council of Elders who would help create cards for upcoming expansions.

If you own or know someone who owns a comic shop that would be interested in running a Duelist League, please reach out! I'd love to start a beta program sooner rather than later in a couple places around the country!

Risks and challenges

Because this is a card game, all the big risks are already overcome (such as creating the cards, working out the mechanics, etc). The production is a pretty straightforward process.

By far the biggest risk is not in production, but investing in the high quality artwork without a proven player base. If we hit our funding goal, we will be able to commission the next batch of artwork for the cards and also to place a bulk order for fulfillment of the campaign's rewards.

The only other issue facing this game is not being popular enough. It's a competitive card game, which is only as good as the community that plays it. It's not fun purchasing a game nobody else wants to play, so spreading the word and finding friends who want to play as well is one of the big side-goals of the whole kickstarter process.

Otherwise the game is ready to go and just needs some arcane artist to play it while our traditional artists finish up the illustrations.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $200 or more
About $200

Collector's Edition

Do you consider yourself the kind of person who has nice things? If so, you're gonna love this!

The collectors edition comes with 4 of every card in the set but with exclusive golden borders! Plus:

- A deluxe special edition box to hold all your spellbooks
- 16 signed BETA set cards
- 16 signed ALPHA set cards
- 16 signed PRE-ALPHA set cards
- 4 golden dragon coins
- Your name printed in rulebook
- A satchel of exclusive hex tokens of the runes